Project Recap: Dining and Living Rooms

I talk a lot about projects we are in the middle of, but I realized that I very seldom actually show a finished product. Well with the purchase of a Craigslist coffee table last night, our front 2 rooms are nearly complete enough that I thought I'd have a little show-and-tell. Here's a recap of how we got here.

When we first moved in in 2009, we had pot lights put in, and Jay painted the walls and ceiling white. They were yellow. Yes, even the ceiling. Jay is not normally one to spearhead a painting project, but he HATES yellow. We actually spilled about half a gallon of paint on the dining room carpet but weren't too concerned knowing we had to get rid of it anyway.

You'll remember our record wall from last year we built when both of our dads gave Jay their old records, as well as the old record player from Jay's parents I painted white:



In August last year, I showed my chandelier painting project for the dining room. And I talked about painting an old lamp I took from my mom. My mom just got me this fun shade from Anthropologie for it:



In December of 2010, I showed our tree wall project for the dining room, and you can also see the new wood floors we had installed. (I never put pics of this process up and I just found a bunch, so I'll have to do a follow-up.)

Here is a pillow my mom helped me make around this time using Ikea fabric:



Back in February, I wrote about picking fabrics to recover all my Craiglist finds. Well we did it.

Couch went from this...


...to this:


And chair went from this...

[I can't find the before...I'm convinced I will though]

...to this:


My inspiration was this chair from Anthropologie that I always loved:

This shows the detail of the top of the table we bought last night (notice our wedding book, which I finally did this last Christmas 3.5 years after the fact...it's currently our only coffee table book). This table taught me perseverance with Craigslist - this was the 3rd table I contacted a seller about. I checked every day, multiple times a day once a lost the first 2.


I have learned my Craigslist lesson: upholstered furniture has to be reupholstered ($$$$) - wooden furniture just has to be wiped off.

And altogether, it looks like this!





The only thing we bought brand new besides the shade my mom got and the Ikea fabric for the pillows was the rug. Last December I was having a bad day and just decided I would feel better if I spent a good amount of money, and Jay said OK. So that's what I got.

The grey-ish chairs also came from my parents. They were pink - we had them recovered. And the table by the grey-ish chairs was also from their old house (I think it was in Kath's old room as a nightstand ????)

I have a few more ideas in here, but we've made a lot of progress over the last 2 years!

[Sidenote: New goal for self is to stop using my camera phone and actually get out our good camera!]

Unfinished Project Month - Update

So an update on unfinished projects...I'm still painting kitchen cabinets. Two down, three to go. I now remember why I never finished this 2 years ago.

Today while painting, I listened to Shiny Toy Guns, who Jay and I saw open years ago for Mute Math. They had some radio songs, but I decided today I really like this less-listened-to song:



And this is Jay's favorite off this album:


And this was in a Lincoln commercial:

The Worst Feeling...

...when you find something you love on Craigslist, email the person, and they never respond back.

[Sigh]

August = Unfinished Project Month

I decided a few weeks ago that August should be "unfinished project month." I have lots of ideas for new projects I want to do, so I figured we should finish up a handful of projects that have been sitting 99% complete for too long. We pretty much already had all the supplies we needed. And now that we have a nail gun, these were even easier!

Project #1: Quarter round in my closet
Procrastinated for: 1 year
Time to complete: 20 mins to cut and nail (40 mins if you include my trip to Lowes)
Cost: $4.69



Project #2: Install glass in guest bathroom cabinets
Procrastinated for: 1.5 years
Time to complete: 30 mins
Cost: free (that's right...we already had the glass cut and everything thanks to my mother over a year ago)


Project #3: Touch-up paint baseboards
Procrastinated for: 1 year
Time to complete: 2 hours
Cost: free

I've left the worst for last...painting the rest of the insides of our kitchen cabinets. I wrote about the horribleness of it here. What I didn't mention is that we didn't exactly finish. We didn't paint what we knew we wouldn't use. And we, in fact, don't use any that haven't been painted.

And here's a pic of Jay with my sister's baby Jack at a brewery (blurry because Jack wasn't digging the brewery). Just because they're both cute boys:

Backyard: Planning Phase 1

If there is one thing NOT lacking in our backyard, it's vision. I absolutely obsess over what COULD be because right now there is not a lot happening.

Well tonight was an exciting night, because I found 1 thing I was thinking we could use back there for free. These are now sitting in our garage:



I saw them on the side of the road (trust me, they weren't actually still in the person's yard...they were more on the road, which means you can take them). So right around 9 tonight, Jay and our neighbor Kevin loaded 3 up in the car. I knew Kevin's wife Stephanie would be totally on board with this and want a few, too. [I forgot to mention that they were REALLY heavy...Stephanie said, "They must really love us," as we stood there watching them get them in the car...]



So now the plan is to get a chain saw to cut each in half. We're thinking we'll need to strip the bark off, and I haven't decided about painting. But then they'll be nice little tables.

This is my plan for what I like to call "Phase 1" for the backyard:



We already have the lights, fire pit, stumps (!!), bench (antique store for $150), and captain's chairs (free from my mother...and apparently kind of in right now I discovered while Googling for a pic). I'm thinking about painting the chairs a funky bright color just for the heck of it.

So now we just need some tall plants and a brick patio. (As a side note, I found several palettes of bricks on Craigslist for $100, but you had to go pick them up and figure out how to get them loaded up and transported wherever you wanted them. For the sake of our marriage, I figured it was worth buying them somewhere that would deliver.)

David Ramirez - Fires

Another project Jay worked on. One of my favorites. Visit the Serial Box for an interview and pics.



Everything is tracked live (hence the video), and they typically only do 1 or 2 takes of each song. Jay engineered and mixed. Here is all the audio they did from the session (that you can download for free!):